Beginners Guide to Fall Harvesting

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As we approach fall, those beautiful green plants that were planted earlier in the year are starting to produce food. I absolutely love this crisp time of year because it means we get to reap what we sowed in the spring. Over the years, I have come to learn how to efficiently harvest and preserve my garden. I do my best at leaving little food wasted and put ripe veggies to practical use. This beginners guide to fall harvesting is packed with simple and easy ways for you to get the most out of your garden with little waste.

I don’t know about you, but we always have so many tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers to harvest in the late summer and fall. Depending on what you planted, you may have other types of produce in your garden just waiting to be put to good use now and later.

Just the other night I picked a basket full of ripe tomatoes, peppers, and herbs and made my own marinara sauce for pasta dinner. It was fresh, healthy and yummy. However, I can’t keep up with all the ready to pick tomatoes we have by just cooking them each night or cutting them up for salads. Plus, I’m pretty sure there would be a mutiny if I made the same marinara sauce every night. Also, it took me over an hour to make that dish from scratch… what mom has time to do that every night? I know I don’t.

So, how do you avoid wasting the beautiful veggies? You get creative.

A Beginners Guide to Harvesting and Preserving Your Fall Garden

Make Salsa

Without fail, every year we make salsa with our garden produce. We always make sure to plant at least 2-3 tomato plants and a couple different kinds of peppers for a garden salsa. Jalapenos are a good choice because of their high yield. We have tried to plant onions in the past, however this year we skipped planting onions and opted to buy them from the local produce stand for our salsa.

Other things we put in our garden salsa include cilantro, garlic, lime juice and seasonings like salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.  We put it all in a food processor and make a few batches for the fridge and make a few canned jars to save for later.

Sauce it up

If you are still left with tomatoes after cooking them and making salsa, another trick it to make sauce with them. My mom always makes tomato sauce with her extra tomatoes and cans it for future recipes. You can make marinara sauce for pastas, tomato sauce for casseroles and diced tomatoes for fall favorites like chili or stew. Add in some fresh herbs for flavor. The options are endless. I would recommend finding a good canning recipe online and following each step to preserve the food properly.

Pickle Veggies

We love to pickle our extra cucumbers and beets. You can also pickle many other veggies including your cauliflower, peppers, green beans, radishes, asparagus, and onions. It’s actually relatively easy to turn a cucumber into a pickle. When you add an acid, such as vinegar to vegetables, the acid prevents microbes from growing and causing spoilage.

We like to make a night of it and pickle our veggies in batches. This usually includes a glass of wine, the TV turned off and a cozy fire in the background. Then we start pickling! I use my mom’s recipe which includes the cucumbers, onion slices, fresh dill sprigs, garlic cloves, peppercorns, salt, sugar, vinegar and water (plus a few secret ingredients). However, the ratio of these ingredients is what is VERY important to pickling, especially when making the brine that you pour into the jar (you need the correct ratio of vinegar, salt, sugar and water). There are many pickling recipes online, just make sure to follow the exact measurements.

Freeze it

We have a vacuum sealer that comes in handy for sealing food for the freezer, but if you don’t have one there are many other ways to seal your food that work just fine. I will also caution that I usually only freeze extra berries, not vegetables. This isn’t to say that you can’t freeze your extra garden veggies, I just haven’t gotten to that in my experience yet because we use it all up with salsa and pickling. Vegetables that are a good choice to freeze and wont blanch include: corn, kale, zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, peas and spinach. 

One thing we do freeze regularly are the loads of blackberries around our property for things like smoothies, and toppings for yogurt and ice cream. We also pick many other berries in the summer such as blueberries, strawberries and raspberries from local farms around the area and freeze them for later.  

Gift Produce

Lastly, when you don’t have the time or energy to make sauce, salsa or pickle the extra produce, the best thing to do is gift your extra produce to someone else. The options are endless.

You can make a gift bag of extra produce and give it to family, friends and coworkers throughout the fall who don’t garden. Another good idea is to donate your extra produce to local food banks.

In my area there are many food banks that serve those in need. North County Community Food Bank (NCCFB) is in my town and accepts homegrown produce at their location in Battle Ground. They serve an average of 650-700 families monthly, nearly 11,000 clients in total.

Children impacted by hunger and family struggle make up 40% of their client base. Another 22% are seniors effected by the limitations of social security and impacted by major medical concerns (nccfoodbank).

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to utilize my garden produce, than to donate it to an organization that supports the community and gives to those who don’t have the means to grow their own healthy food. If you live in Clark County and want to know more about donating to them, please check out their website at www.nccfoodbank.org.

Final Words on Fall Harvesting

If you want to know more about the great benefits of gardening, click on over to this article on the benefits a garden in the PNW. Additionally, if you want to know how eating organically can make your skin glow, read this article HERE.

Planting, maintaining and growing a garden is fun, but the best part is when you get to harvest the food and put it to good use. Whether you make a homemade recipe from scratch, pickle your extra veggies, make salsa or sauce, freeze it or give it away… you are harvesting your garden like a true professional.

Join the Discussion

Tell us in the comments how you harvest and preserve your garden in the fall!

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Author

Sara Halcumb is a Registered Nurse, wellness blogger, mother and wife.

Sources

North County Community Food Bank |. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nccfoodbank.org/